When choosing a hand surgeon here in NJ, there are a number of important items that must be on your wish list. Excellent reputation, education and hospital affiliation are crucial to ensuring that you receive the very best care during your hand surgery and recovery.
Be sure to set your bar high when selecting the best surgeon for you. Begin by checking hand surgeons credentials with the state, then learn something about their surgical philosophy and reputation; both online and by speaking to past patients.
With a little research, you should be able to find quite a few talented hand surgeons here in the Bergen County area of New Jersey.
Choose the Best Surgeon Who is also the Right Surgeon
In order to pick the right hand surgeon for you, you must go a bit further in your evaluations. When choosing an NJ-area hand surgeon, be sure to prioritize intangibles like dedication, rapport, communication and trust, which are also key to a successful outcome from your hand surgery.
These are qualities you can only evaluate by meeting with a skilled NJ hand surgeon, so be sure to allow yourself time for the process. When you find an excellent hand surgeon who is also the right surgeon for you, you’ll be able to move forward confidently with your hand surgery.
“Seeing” with the Hands
The hands are a crucial part of how we “see” the world and the place we experience most of our touch-sense. The best hand surgeons understand the unique sensory input and communication function of the hands.
Yes, the skin and nerves of the entire body are also touch-sensitive to various degrees. The hands, however, receive much of our brain’s focus. We reach out with intention using our hands, more than any other body part, to gather information about the world.
This is in contrast to, for example, just casually or half-unknowingly brushing against something with our shin as we walk past.
Communicating with the Hands
Of course the hands do much more than we’ve mentioned, or could ever mention. Besides the all-important touch-sense, which helps bring information into our awareness, we use our hands to communicate and send messages out.
We express ourselves with our hands, although arguably not as much as we communicate with our face. Overall body language is very powerful as well. But the hands are special. Our hands allow us to interact and communicate, and also accomplish concrete things in the physical world.
Patients who seek out hand surgery in northern New Jersey are all too aware of how their hand movement limitations and pain affect daily life.
Human Accomplishment and the Hands
A dedicated NJ hand surgeon understands all the roles your hands play in your life as well as how hands work in minute detail. Our hands can bring us a sense of pride in accomplishment and satisfaction with being human.
Whether you are writing, reaching out to a loved one, comforting your child; think of the satisfaction behind the statement “I did it with my own two hands.” What we cannot accomplish with our hands, guided of course by our brain or mind, we often use hand tools to accomplish.
Our hands allow us to achieve great things and also to handle basic tasks of daily living. Whether you are buttoning your coat, cooking a meal, making art through painting or sculpture, or even performing surgery, your hands and mind make it possible.
Anatomy and Function of the Hands
The anatomical structures of the hand and wrist are some of the most intricate in the body. The complex interplay of tiny bones, tendons, muscles, nerves, blood vessels and more, are responsible for making the hands work.
When there is a problem with one or both of our hands, our entire lives don’t work as well as they did before. If your hand or wrist is injured or impaired by arthritis (or other degenerative disease), tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome or by deformity, life can instantly become both more frustrating and more challenging.
A good hand surgeon helps you to overcome the challenges and frustration, by helping to fully restore the “architecture” and the function of your hands.
NJ Hand Surgeons: Qualifications to Look For
To find the best-qualified hand surgeon, don’t look for a board-certified NJ plastic surgeon only — although aesthetics are a big part of the surgical outcome that you must be concerned with. Your chosen surgeon should also have board certification in general surgery, which indicates additional years of thorough surgical training.
These extra years help a surgeon develop superior judgment and the ability to “think on their feet”. Quick decisions are often required during surgery of any type, and years of solid surgical experience hone this skill.
In addition, be sure to seek out a reconstructive surgeon with 5+ years of microsurgery experience in hand surgery. The reconstructive hand surgeon gains intimate knowledge of the anatomy of the hand, fingers and wrists, making him or her best qualified to restore the proper function and appearance of the hand.
Years of experience in microsurgery allow New Jersey hand surgeons to develop superior dexterity and precise surgical technique in the smallest and most challenging areas of the body, such as the fingers and hands.
Look for a surgeon with surgical privileges at a renowned hospital; surgical privileges at a university medical center are ideal. If you can find a surgeon who also teaches (or has taught) and mentored other surgeons, this indicates that peers, hospitals and medical education boards have confidence in the surgeon’s deep knowledge of complex hand surgery.
From this group of elite hand surgeons, choose someone who demonstrates dedication to helping you, explains your options, answers your questions. Choose a surgeon you trust to partner with your for success.
Meet with an Expert Hand Surgeon at No Charge to You
If you’re suffering from pain or restricted movement in your hands, you owe it to yourself to find the very best NJ hand surgeon for you. At Cohen/Winters Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery in Bergen County, NJ, we’re dedicated to improving lives.
We specialize in restorative microsurgery of the hand and would be happy to meet with you to discuss your options to gain (or regain) pain-free hand movement and proper function.
